


Bring Down the Skies

by darkness (flower_child)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flower_child/pseuds/darkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This tells the story of the scene in the episode "Kuvira's Gambit" from Kuvira's point of view. It also has flashbacks from Kuvira's time in Zaofu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Down the Skies

“If he’s not on the airship, then where is he?” Kuvira is staring at her radio transponder, completely baffled at Raiko’s statement. What does he mean, Baatar isn’t on the ship?

Then, suddenly, another voice cuts through the light static. “Kuvira? It’s Baatar. I’ve been captured. My airship was ambushed and I was taken by force. Korra refuses to release me unless we back down and leave the city.”

Kuvira bites her lip, a plan forming in the back of her head. Step one is go. “Are you injured?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” Baatar responds.

Step two. Get information. “Is the avatar there with you?”

“Yes, everyone is here.”

Kuvira is suddenly struck with a memory.

 

She was sixteen and playing chess with Baatar Sr. She had one knee drawn up to her chest, tapping her foot against the chair. “I’m gonna beat you,” she said, her eyes scanning the board.

Baatar Sr.’s mouth twitched upwards.

Kuvira could almost see him as her father.

“I’m going to show you something.” He picked up one of his pieces and put it in perfect position for Kuvira to take it.

She made a ‘what are you doing’ gesture with her hands. “Are you aware you just put that right where I can take it?”

Baatar Sr. nodded, that smile still on his face. “This is called a gambit. You sacrifice an important piece early to get a tactical advantage.”

Kuvira grinned and hugged her knees closer to her chest, taking inventory of every piece on the board. She would win.

 

Kuvira shakes her head violently, clearing it of the memory. She uses metalbending to flick the ‘mute’ switch on the transponder. Baatar can no longer hear her. “Find out where that radio signal is coming from,” she tells the engineer.

 

Kuvira was becoming better at chess by the day. She sat on the front steps, drumming her fingers against her chin. A familiar face appeared around one side of the house. Baatar Jr. Kuvira immediately sat up straight, pretending she hadn’t seen him. She was sure her face was red.

“Hey, Wei!” She shouted at her ~~brother~~ friend, who was also crossing in front of the house.

She could almost feel him roll his eyes from across the courtyard. “If it involves you beating me at something, I don’t want to do it, Kuvira.”

She laughed lightheartedly. “One game?”

Wei grinned and made his way over to the patio. “One game.”

After an hour of frustration and intense contemplation over the chessboard between them, Kuvira shouted, “I win! Yes! Finally!”

“What do you mean, ‘finally’?” Wei leaned his chair back, surveying the board. “You win _every time_.”

Suyin turned the corner, a basket of laundry balanced on her hip. “What did who win?”

Wei stood up, eyes flickering good naturedly. “Kuvira won at chess, _again._ ”

“I’ve been using that ‘gambit’ move Baat—” Kuvira caught sight of the look on Su’s face. She hated it when Kuvira called her and Baatar Sr. by their first names. “—Dad taught me the other day.”

“Gambit, eh?” Su’s expression softened. “You should patent that. Call it ‘Kuvira’s Gambit.’” With that, she swung from the courtyard, smiling.

 

 _Snap out of it_ , Kuvira tells herself.

Baatar begins speaking again. His voice is so broken. It’s like every word is a hole in the plan she’s forming. It‘s like they were nineteen years old again, and Baatar is trying to convince her not to go on that dangerous mission. She closes her eyes. “Listen to me,” he says. “If you try to take Republic City, the avatar will never let me see you again. And I refuse to live that way. Forget the United Republic, we have our empire. We have each other. Let’s go back home and get married. The only thing that matters is that we’re together for the rest of our lives.”

It is tempting. It is so tempting. Kuvira bites her lip, feeling the pressure start to build behind her eyes. But she won’t cry. She’s on the verge of victory. The only thing in her way…

 

She was nineteen and had finally risen to the captain’s position in the Zaofu guard. Intelligence had reached them that there was going to be an uprising in a state in the southwestern Earth Kingdom, and there were no troops stationed in the area, so the Zaofu guard was called. Ultimately, it was Kuvira’s decision whether or not to send them.

Kuvira heard a knock at the door. She stirred and glanced at the clock on the wall: 2am. An unknown face stood in the doorway; the light from the hallway was blocking a clear picture from forming. However, as he stepped further into the room, Kuvira could see it was Baatar Jr.

“What’s going on?” Kuvira asked blearily, sitting up. The guards were sometimes awoken in the middle of the night if there was an impending threat. “Is something wrong?”

Baatar shook his head and walked over to the bed, sitting down next to Kuvira. “I was just thinking about the mission…and I got so afraid of you not coming back.”

Kuvira’s face softened. “Baatar, I’ll be fine.” She placed her hand on his.

“I know, I just can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again…”

Kuvira could see tear tracks on the face she’d known and loved for so long. She should cry too, but the tears wouldn’t come. They hardly did anymore.

“This is an amazing opportunity to help the people of the Earth Kingdom,” she said, excited. “Think about how many people we can save—“

Baatar stopped her by putting a hand on her thigh. “I don’t want to think about them. I want to think about you.”

Kuvira sighed, resigned. “It’s just a routine thing, not dangerous at all. I’ve faced worse.”

Baatar seemed to be getting aggravated. “No, you haven’t! You haven’t faced a full-on uprising! These people are irrational, prepared to do anything to get what they want. They could kill you and not take a second look.”

His voice broke on the last sentence.

“I love you,” Kuvira said sincerely, looking into his eyes. “But I need to do this. This is the first step to stabilization.”

“Goddammit, Kuvira!” Baatar stood up angrily. “Don’t you see what I’m talking about? You don’t care about anything but _helping the Earth Kingdom_ , but what about me? What about our life together?”

“I don’t try to hold you back from your engineering,” Kuvira said, standing as well. “All your projects, all your time spent studying, I never say anything about that. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Kuvira, I—“

“No, let me talk,” Kuvira said, becoming even more frustrated. She started pacing up and down the bedroom. “You can’t seem to spare a thought for me while you’re doing all your tinkering, but I know that’s what you love, so I let you do it! Don’t you think I think about all the times your experiments go wrong? Don’t you think I know about all those accidents? _Well I do._ And they worry me _to death_ , Baatar. But I know that I can’t protect you from any of that. I know I can only love you, and that’s what I do.”

“ _Love me?”_ Tears started running down Baatar’s cheeks again. _“I love you, Kuvira!_ That’s all I do!”

“It isn’t a contest, Baatar.” Kuvira folded her arms and turned away. “There’s no prize, there’s no finish line, it’s just you and me. And we can’t protect each other from _what might happen_. I don’t know if it’s enough for you, but if I can love you, then that’s all I need.”

She felt Baatar come up behind her and slip his hands around her waist. “That’s more than enough for me.” His fingers were light as feathers against her nightdress, and she shuddered as they slid up her body to the collar of her nightdress.

“Baatar, everyone’s in the house,” Kuvira whispered, looking around.

In response, Baatar’s fingers trailed down her chest. She closed her eyes at the contact, God she loved it so much. “Okay,” she grinned, and they landed on her bed together, her nightdress falling around her shoulders.  

She stared into the eyes of the person she loved so, so much. They’d grown up together, and they suited each other like the water and moon spirits, and she never wanted to give him up.

“Never leave me,” she whispered against his mouth, running her fingers up his sides.

Baatar kissed her even harder. “They would have to bring down the skies to keep me from you.”

 

The engineer to her left snaps her out of the memory. “We’ve identified their position.”

Kuvira takes a deep breath, two sides of her warring in her mind. She shuts her eyes, terrified. Then, she speaks. “You’re right. This city isn’t worth sacrificing our life together. I love you, Baatar.”

She aims the spirit cannon at the building and shoots.

In novels, they always talked about how you could feel your very heart breaking. Kuvira had always thought it was just a metaphor. Until that moment.


End file.
